ABSTRACT

Developmental research has long sought to understand children’s social ideas, and particularly how those ideas influence their judgments and behaviors toward other people. We examine the idea of common humanity, a social idea that has been investigated historically and philosophically, to re-consider what is already known about children’s notions of social equality and difference and to suggest how research in this area might be expanded. We review the social cognition literature to argue that studying the idea of common humanity—which combines abstract notions of universal equality with explicit attention to social group differences—could substantially advance our understanding of children’s social-cognitive frameworks. We then discuss a subset of the literature related to children’s prejudice and describe how the study of common humanity could shed light on the mechanisms behind interventions that successfully reduce prejudice.

摘要

长期以来，发展研究一直试图了解儿童的社会观念，尤其是这些观念如何影响他们对他人的判断和行为。我们检视共同人性的观念，一种经过历史和哲学研究的社会思想，重新考虑关于儿童社会平等和差异概念的已知内容，并建议如何扩展该领域的研究。我们回顾了社会认知文献，认为研究共同人性的概念——将普遍平等的抽象概念与对社会群体差异的明确关注相结合——可以大大提高我们对儿童社会认知框架的理解。然后，我们讨论与儿童偏见相关的部分文献，并描述对共同人性的研究如何揭示成功减少偏见的干预措施背后的机制。